CAPABILITY OF REPAIRING INJURIES. 157 



of preservation when it is itself in peril. The prey 

 may be within a hair's breadth, yet it is seized only 

 on actual contact. There is no spontaneous extension 

 of the numerous tentacula, although they are capable 

 of all kinds of inflexion, nor any apparent effort made 

 to reach it. More singular still, should the vessel be 

 gradually emptied, or the water evaporate, so as to 

 leave the Actiniae totally or partially dry, they will 

 never move from their position in order to immerse 

 themselves, not even when their tentacula can reach 

 the surface. 



The Actiniae are very patient of injuries, and rival 

 the Hydra in their reproductive powers. If the ten- 

 tacula are clipped off, they soon begin to bud anew ; 

 and if again cut away, they grow again. Nay, more, it 

 seems that " these reproductions might extend as far, 

 or be as often repeated, as patience or curiosity would 

 admit/' If cut transversely through the middle, the 

 lower portion of the body will, after a time, produce 

 new tentacula, " pretty nearly as they were before the 

 operation/' while the upper portion swallows food as if 

 nothing had happened permitting it, indeed, at first 

 to come out at the opposite end, "just as a man's 

 head being cut off would let out at the neck the bit 

 taken in at the mouth/' but which it soon learns to 

 retain and digest in a proper manner. In an experi- 

 ment of this kind, the upper half, instead of healing 

 up into a new basis, actually produced another mouth 

 and tentacula, so that an animal was formed which 

 caught its prey and fed at both ends at the same time. 

 If, again, the section of the body is made in a per- 

 pendicular direction, so as almost to divide it into two 



